Them Ol' Steem injines

[NW Mailing List]

I'm attaching a poor photo I made in the summer of 1957 of Y-6b 2180, the
highest numbered Roanoke-assigned Mallet.  He's running by Seven Mile Ford
with the 34 cars of time freight 88, and he's doing 45 MPH.  I made the
photo out of the back seat of a car pacing him.  The Engineer was A. T.
Holland.

It should be understood that there was never another Mallet, ever,
anywhere, that would run like this.  88 is not coming out of a dip.  He's
been on level or slightly ascending track ever since leaving Glade Spring
after setting off cars for the Saltville Branch.  All of Roanoke's
refinements are working here - everything the Mechanical Engineers learned
after putting the Y-2 on the road in 1918.  Not the least of these is the
counterbalancing - the engineer is obviously not experiencing a bad ride.
You say what's the point?  There were many engines, including the J, that
would move this train that fast there.  But the point is that none of the
other engines were compounds.  None.

Now shift your attention to Link's Mockingbird recording which depicts Y-6
2146 bringing tonnage into Glade Spring on the Saltville Branch.  The
engineer is obviously running the engine standing up so he could handle the
throttle more quickly and easily.  The "46" actually slips still at one
point, but starts moving again and gets the train over the hill and into
Glade.

Understand that about the only other reciprocating steam locomotive that
could have gotten this job done might have been Virginian's AE 2-10-10-2.
The Triplexes might have done it but would have had to stop and blow up
steam several times.  But Big Boy wouldn't have done it; H-8 wouldn't have
done it; no Yellowstone would have done it; GN's big 2-8-8-2 wouldn't have
done it . . .

And the 2146 was capable of doing the same thing the 2180 was doing in the
photograph.

So let's keep things in perspective.  Here was a locomotive with the boiler
the size of that of a big 4-8-4 doing jobs that no other locomotive could
have done, at least not as economically.

Just my two cents . . .

EdKing

Moderator:

http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/2015/20150814.NW_2180_Seven_Mile_Ford_Summer_1957.jpg
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